This three-year degree is one of the best-known film courses in the world, with an international reputation for its academic and practical teaching.

Our students’ films are shown at festivals globally and have won a host of honours and awards, including Royal Television Society Awards, a Student Academy Award and a Grierson Best Student Documentary Award.

We operate from a purpose-built studio facility in Harrow, with two large film and television studios, a set construction workshop, a 3D workshop, and extensive post-production facilities. The environment is both scholarly and creative, with all students studying film history, criticism and aesthetics alongside their practical work.

You'll learn to collaborate creatively as you develop production specialisms in areas such as writing, producing, cinematography, directing, production design, editing and sound. You'll also gain the transferable and cognitive skills necessary for lifelong personal and professional development.

We aim to develop thinking filmmakers who have something to say to, and about, the world. A very high proportion of our students go on to work in film and television, and recent work from notable alumni includes The Greatest Showman and Nocturnal Animals (Seamus McGarvey, cinematographer), Senna and Amy (Asif Kapadia, director) and No Time to Die and Skyfall (Neal Purvis, screenwriter, producer). Under the Shadow, the first feature directed by 2005 graduate Babak Anvari, was selected as the UK entry for the 2017 Best Foreign Language film Oscar and won the Outstanding Debut Award at the 2017 BAFTA Awards.

The course receives substantial support from the industry and you will gain experience of working with professional actors, negotiating with facilities houses, equipment hire companies and local authorities.

Based at the recently refurbished Harrow Campus – home to the Westminster School of Arts – you will work alongside students from design, photography, music, fashion and journalism, in a unique hothouse of creative opportunity.

Through an excellent network of industry contacts, some of whom teach on the course, and including many alumni of the course, students have opportunities for part-time work, placements and work-related learning activities.

The second year includes a core work-based professional learning module in which students may undertake a short work placement and begin to develop their industry connections and awareness.

Students may also undertake an optional year-long placement between their second and third year.

Placements/ Year abroad

Between Years 2 and 3, you may also undertake an optional year-long placement. If you take advantage of this option, you’ll undertake an additional year-long industry placement year module running parallel to your work placement, and their final degree award will be BA Honours Film with Professional Experience.

Career

Film and television can be difficult industries in which to gain a foothold. Our emphasis on equipping graduates with skills in entry-level roles as well as experience in Head of Department roles, allows them to gain immediate employment and opportunities to progress.

Typical entry-level roles can include:

• Art department trainee or assistant
• Location runner/location assistant
• Camera trainee
• Production assistant
• Script reader
• Script supervisor’s assistant
• AD runner or 3rd AD
• Researcher
• Editorial trainee/ 2nd assistant editor/assistant editor

Examples of graduate employment include:

• Assistant Location Manager on Annihilation (Saba Kia) and locations Assistant on The Nutcracker (Tara Acton)
• Production Assistant on The Danish Girl (Behnam Taheri) and on Set Production Assistant on Spider-Man: Far From Home (Pippa Howson) and Production Co-ordinator on Yesterday (Jannika Oberg) and Downton Abbey (Aneta Chalas)
• Director's Assistant: 2nd Unit on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Lois Gration) and 1st AD/2nd Unit Director on 47 Meters Down (James Nunn)
• Central Loader on Cats (Hannah Jell) and Aladdin (Cenay Said), clapper Loader: 2nd Unit on No Time to Die (Phil Barnes), 2nd AC: Sprite Unit on Bohemian Rhapsody (Maiya Rose) and Camera Trainee on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (Sarah Collins)
• VFX Production Assistant on Dumbo (Jack Lewis) and VFX Editor on Hellboy (2019) (Kieran Waller) and VFX Data Capture on Cats (Chris Upson)
• Assistant Script Supervisor on Men in Black: International (Alice Guillot)

Other recent graduates have gone on to further study, including:

• National Film and Television School – graduates currently doing MAs in Screenwriting, Cinematography, Editing, Commercials.
• MA Film and Screen Studies, Cambridge University
• MA History of Dress, Courtauld Institute
• PhD, Film Directing, University of Liverpool
• MA English Literature, City University
• MFA Production Design, American Film Institute